


Stone Ships

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Multi-Age, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3769757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unusual genesis to this poem brought about by the situation in Hollin in the Second Age.  An (Unrequited) Love Ode...with a twist.  The Dwarf in question writes to/about an Elf-maiden, in the only language he knows.  Infatuation, from a Dwarven perspective.  More a melancholy than an angst reveal at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone Ships

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

 

You would be carved from alabaster, the living rock itself

And its beauty would not outlast you.

For you live a thousand lives and do not wear away

Your white skin cool in the star-webbed night, and warmed by the shine of sunlight

Yet it would seem lifeless for all my skill.

For there is a light within your whole being

It leaps and starts like fire or starlight

Hushed in a sudden wind

Or fanned bright as mithril silver

The lapped lake beneath the sky.

To that, dull rock of sternest beauty cannot compare

Though your veins were azure blue.

Your hair the finest threads of gold, or a mixed metal;

It changes with the passing light, and I am enthralled.

How like it is to copper or bronze, but soft,

Each strand drawn out, as if by the afternoon wind 

over the mountain streams

Into everlasting spider-strands.

Eyes, like light shining through a precious vein of stone there would be in

The statue so like to you.

Topaz, bright-flashing, set beneath with irises of jet

And overlaid with the cool sphere of clearest quartz-crystal

Shining like diamond.But your eyes are not hard,

Or so I hope.

Of carnelian would your lips be

Rose-red, like the dawn

Over a distant sea

Which I have never seen

Or heard your gulls calling

Like carved ivory above the foam.


End file.
